


Boiling Point

by mycapeisplaid



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angelic Biology, M/M, Pimm's appreciation, Pseudoscience, classic heat wave fic, that is, thirsty for each other, very thirsty supernatural beings, why do I always write about hair, why does Aziraphale need a barber?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 20:08:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20014087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mycapeisplaid/pseuds/mycapeisplaid
Summary: God has had enough of their bullshit and lights a fire under their arses.  Or, alternatively, the drop of sweat that broke the camel's back.





	Boiling Point

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks always to CanolaCrush for beta'ing for me. It's been a very long time since I've put pen to paper, and I'm nervous about it. Please be gentle while I find my voice in this fandom.

“That is truly horrifying,” slurred Aziraphale. “Must have been your lot, for sure.”

Crowley lowered his sunglasses to peer closely at the ancient television before discarding them on what little space was available on the end table. “Nah. Not their style. Fire is so...” he waggled a hand. “...boring,” he finished at last. 

On the screen, a reporter stood on the south bank of the Thames, directly in front of the Westminster bridge. She was interviewing a child who was shaken but still had her wits about her. “The lights went out,” she said with a noticeable French accent, “and no one could see anything. Then there was the smoke and noises…”

“No, not the fire. That!” Aziraphale pointed to the screen. “On the left there.” He shuddered. “Big green puppet.”

“That’s not a puppet, you idiot. That’s Shrek.”

Aziraphale continued to scowl at the television. “Who now?”

“For the love of… _Shrek_. The movie? You loved it. Wouldn’t shut up about the talking donkey.”

Recognition bloomed across Aziraphale’s face. “Oh, yes. It was a cartoon!” It was not exactly a cartoon, but it would be years before the angel would know the difference. 

“It did have a decent soundtrack,” Crowley acknowledged, taking another indelicate sip of Pimm’s. It dribbled down his chin. He swiped at it absently. London was broiling, and the best one could do was stay put, grumble about the heat, and drown in icy jugs of alcohol and fruit juice.

“That beast doesn’t even resemble Shrek,” Aziraphale muttered. “Hideous. No wonder those children were frightened. Are you sure that’s not demonic? The.... posing as a cartoon in a costume thing? It must be seriously disturbing to be told a character is only a drawing on paper...”

“...it’s done on a computer…”

“...on an electronic paper,” he amended, “and then have that three dimensional thing coming in for a hug. Just look at it. That looks nothing like Shrek. It looks like... a… a horrible ogre, or something.” He shuddered.

Crowley rolled his eyes. It wasn’t worth it.

On the screen, the actor who had the misfortune of being Shrek in that night’s performance of _Shrek’s Adventure! London_ removed the gigantic head that really did look like some freaky bastardized version of the endearing ogre and handed it off to someone who was done up like a fortune teller. The camera was still focused on the young lady explaining how she found her way out of the attraction amid the smoke and misfiring animatronics, but the bedraggled man-in-a-Shrek-costume was still visible in the background. Someone was helping him mop his face.

“Yeah, you’re right, it’s not a good likeness.”

Aziraphale thought, worrying his lower lip. His eyes grew round as a thought occurred to him: “Please tell me there’s no one in the donkey.”

Crowley grinned. “We did do that,” he admitted. “The two-person costume. Someone is always stuck being the backside of the ass, so to speak, and whoever gets the arse-end of it is three times as likely to sin in the next twenty-four hours as the bloke in the front. It’s brilliant.”

Aziraphale visualised Gabriel and Sandalphon stuck in a donkey costume (Gabriel as the arse-end, of course) and giggled before growing serious once more. “Seems like a rotten business,” he said, “tricking kids like that. It’s duplith...dupliss...lying.”

“They’re not tricked, angel. Kids love that shit. You clearly haven’t been to Disney World.”

Both of them looked at each other as if that were the one place neither of them would ever want to end up. (Neither Heaven nor Hell had anything to do with Disney. Humans did that all on their own).

“Anyway,” continued Crowely, “kids know. About people in costumes. Take Donald Duck for instance: not a duck at all! Likely some twenty-year-old woman getting a degree in hospitality. I wonder if they have little fans running in there, or something. Must be hot as bollocks. Besides, I don’t know what bothers you so much about it,” Crowley said, rummaging ‘round the bottom of his cup to poke at the fruit. “It’s not like you don’t appreciate a good costume. I mean, look at you. It’s thirty-four degrees. It feels like Below in here, and you’re still wearing that ridiculous bow tie. You probably feel like our poor man Shrek there.”

“I appreciate a _good_ costume, yes. That is a _bad_ costume,” Aziraphale clarified. “I wouldn’t be caught dead in it.”

It goes then, to be very clear, that Aziraphale and Crowley did not step into human costumes to cleverly disguise their divine nature. Aziraphale looked very much like he had in Heaven, except when he was attending the Glory of the Lord, an occasion much like going to a grand dinner when everyone spends exorbitant amounts of money (or, in an angel’s case, energy) on making their outward appearance as extravagant as possible. God Herself could throw one heck of a celebratory ceremony, where angels were called upon to make a Joyful Noise in whatever form they fancied. It was the very first form of fancy dress. Aziraphale had always been fond of these gatherings, and he has, on occasion, been a being of wheels of fire, wings, and numerous eyeballs. 

All angels were created by Herself, brought into existence by Her Word alone. There was no rite of passage, no fanfare, or even strange sensations as he transitioned from the ethereal plane to the corporal one. He had been given his Earthly assignment at Head Office, he’d stepped into the lift, pressed the down button, and exited just as he is today: an angel made flesh. 

His flesh was, at the moment, wishing he and Crowley were on holiday somewhere considerably cooler. Shifting in his chair, he could feel his shirt stick to his sweaty back. He pulled on it and made a face of disgust. “Mm. I do so hate perspiring.” He fidgeted with his bow tie, running his finger underneath it. 

“Oh, just take it off.”

He looked at Crowley as if he had said something risque, but he did as he was told. Then he unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. And, in an uncharacteristic compulsion, the second. 

The heat wave had finally reached the point where Aziraphale had finally abandoned his velvet and wool tweed for linen and cotton. He no longer looked half-a-century behind in fashion, but more like a modern lesbian with tartan shorts, short-sleeved blue chambary button-up, and ditsy-print bowtie from Liberty of London. He had ditched the straw boater’s hat he was wearing earlier, and now his hair was more curly than usual, little circlicues of white-blonde having gone damp at the roots. It was actually a very fetching look. Crowley had been appreciating the curve of the angel’s calves for the last three days. The last time he’d seen Aziraphale show so much skin was when they’d met up at the Turkish baths back in the late nineteenth century. Back before they’d become… whatever they were now.

“Well, while we’re at it,” Crowely said congenitally, and began unbuttoning his own black shirt. He paused, looked up. Underneath he was wearing a sleeveless vest, thin, black, and so low-cut that it looked more suited to the club than Aziraphale’s bookstore on a Wednesday night. “You don’t mind, do you?”

Did he mind? What a silly question. “Oh, no, not at all,” Aziraphale sputtered when the dark smattering of hair on Crowley’s chest came into view. There was something about seeing Crowley’s body hair that made Aziraphale feel hot under the collar. He hadn’t seen Crowley’s bare legs in several hundred years, but Aziraphale suddenly remembered how handsome they were: wiry, long, and splendidly hairy. The ambient temperature of the surrounding area actually increased another degree, despite the fact that the sun had just set. Aziraphale swallowed and wiped his hands on his shorts. “I’ll make more drinks!” he exclaimed. Any more of these thoughts, and he’d have heatstroke.

“No, I’ve got it,” said Crowley, standing and gathering up the empty jug. “You stay put in case your thing comes on.”

One may think that a celestial being could essentially regulate their body temperature to suit whatever climate they should find themselves in. Technically Aziraphale could, but it would be very time consuming, difficult, and cost more energy than he was wont to spend. 

A word about an angel’s corporeal form: it behaves very much like a human’s. (They were both modeled after God Herself, of course.) No angel has ever been dissected, but if one had, there would be very few distinguishing characteristics for anyone to find. Put that body under an MRI machine, however, and you’d get an entirely different story. The picture it would produce would resemble something vaguely analogous to the human body. However, an MRI’s primary method of creating visual images revolves around aligning the protons of every atom in whatever it is scanning. 

Angels (and demons) have no protons. 

What takes the proton’s place is much more malleable than the protons contained within earthly matter, and it is this particle that allows ethereal beings to manipulate their bodies and general surroundings with minimal effort. Aziraphale vaguely remembers an email from the Metatron, designated “urgent,” that indicated She was rather surprised and amused at the humans’ discovery of the Higgs-Bosun particle, and even though the humans incorrectly called it the “god-particle”, She reminded all supernatural entities to keep their actual honest-to-God-god-particles to themselves. Just in case.

Their physical bodies were precious, and Upstairs took very unkindly if they were abused or terminated early. Poor Mebahiah was demoted after twice discorporating himself by falling off a horse. They need upkeep, too, and require proper hygiene, grooming, temperature regulation, and all the rest in order to work at peak performance.

So, when Aziraphale indulges in a box of Fortnum & Mason violet cremes, he is indeed chewing, swallowing, and passing that gross matter right down a very real esophagus and into a stomach that, for all intents and purposes, works very much like a human’s does. While his atoms are not the standard human variety, he still has cells that need to respire, and drawing miracles from the aether does take a considerable amount of energy. The food he eats he could digest, but he has the ability to turn glucose molecules into light, love, and laughter, which he immensely prefers to eliminating waste the human way. Once he figured out how to do it he never bothered with the excretory plumbing again.

Aziraphale fanned himself with his hand and listened to Crowley hum as he sliced fruit and slung ice into the jug. The bookshop was beginning to feel awfully close. Heat tends to be a catalyst for humans; it makes them cranky, on edge. Crime rates double during heatwaves; people are hot and cranky, and normal everyday annoyances become grains of sand that tip the scale from logical to irrational behavior. If there is a metaphorical line for any specific behavior, the heat has a way of nudging people right up to it and then, often, over.

That was the way Aziraphale felt now. Like the line they’d always drawn between themselves was no longer necessary, and now they’d toed right up to it, and all it would take was something to push them over. The last few weeks had been simply a delight. They were free, finally free from duty and expectations and they could move...forward. Aziraphale wasn’t quite sure exactly what “forward” entailed, but he had held himself in constraint for so long, and now that he wasn’t using up all his energy performing miracles or thwarting evil yet still eating and drinking as much as ever, he was positively brim-full of affection, of a scintillating, prismatic love, and of an all-encompassing need to discharge it somehow -- or bestow it on someone, someone whom he had wanted to, had hoped, dared to dream to love for a thousand years. Maybe more. Maybe from the very start. He was a kettle about to boil. He was the little teapot who was more than ready for Crowley to tip him over and pour him out. Or maybe it was the other way around. Who knew.

“Well, that’s the last of the cucumber,” said Crowley, returning to the settee, a full jug in his hands. “You... me... together! It’s Pimm’s o’clock!” he sing-songed. He sat down again, tipped his head back, and from his left hand, took two slices of cucumbers and placed them over his eyes. “How do I look?”

“Good lord.” Aziraphale smiled, willing his pulse to slow down. “Rather like you did that one time I had to pull you out of Amsterdam. Your eyes were big as saucers.”

“Ooh. Yeah, that was… it was.” Crowley winced, remembering. “Yeah. No good.” One of the cucumber slices slid from his face, flopped down the front of his shirt and landed in his crotch. Both of them burst out laughing.

“Stop that,” Aziraphale tutted as he poured himself his seventh glass of Pimm’s. “Look. Here, it’s on. We’ve almost missed it.”

The newscaster was introducing the lifestyle segment for the evening. 

“Are you paying attention?”

Crowley recovered the cucumbers and put them in his drink. “I’m looking, angel. I’m looking.”

“Oh! There I am!” He pursed his lips, pleased. “I’m on the television, Crowley!”

“Shut up and listen.”

They sipped their drinks while a reporter introduced a segment on a barbershop just down the way from Aziraphale’s bookshop. In the past three decades, this barbershop had seen an unusual amount of patronage, causing it to be so successful that the owner, Saul Rosen, was actually able to buy the place next door, renovate both properties, and cultivate a bit of a cult following for fashionable men’s grooming. There were even a few A-list celebrities who were known to frequent the joint. The only secret to Saul’s success was the fact that Aziraphale had taken a shining to the owner when he’d met him in the early nineties, and he was nearly a weekly customer of the place. Sometimes angelic influence just happens, whether the angel wills it or not.

Aziraphale himself was such a fixture there that he had his own little gaggle of geese, young people of a certain persuasion who thought of him as a wise uncle (or guardian angel, if you will). After his shave and trim, Azriaphale would linger, eagerly listening to whatever adventures they’d gotten themselves into this week, to whatever heartaches they were burdened with, to the simple joys they experienced in their simple humanity. They were endlessly fascinating. They were the same sort of people he’d sought out again and again over the years, and had he been human, he supposed he would be like them: male, but with a taste for the effeminate; artistic, eclectic, kind, passionate, well-read, and gregarious. He knows how humans view him, and he is pleased with how he presents himself. There was a reason he’d set up in Soho, after all, and the small rainbow flag tucked into an Italian ceramic vase near the till in his own shop heralds it.

The expo on the telly began by featuring shots panning around the shop, some before-and-after photos, and a brief survey of a wall of specialty grooming products that Saul displayed like they were hothouse flowers. He had a particular nose, and Aziraphale often found himself buying new tonics, colognes, lotions, tinctures, and hair pastes simply because they smelled rather heavenly. 

Then, onto the main attraction: an interview with Saul himself, who was currently engaged in shaving one very pleased angel. 

“You look like Santa Claus,” quipped Crowley at the sight of his friend done up in shaving foam.

“I do not!” Aziraphale retorted, realizing that perhaps he did, just a bit.

The end of the segment was an exchange between Saul and Aziraphale, customary thank-yous and the like. “He’s very, very good,” said an ebullient television Aziraphale, whose name appeared “Frequent Customer Mr. Ezra Fell” on the screen. “There’s nothing quite like a good, old-fashioned shave. My cheeks feel as smooth as a bottom!” He smiled cheekily as he touched one manicured hand to his face as proof.

Next to him, Crowley smacked his forehead. “A _baby’s_ bottom, for someone’s sake. Smooth as a _baby’s bottom_! I can’t leave you alone for a minute, I swear.”

Aziraphale shrugged. “It’s what I meant.” Sort of.

“And there you have it,” said the reporter, stroking his own whiskers. “I’ll give it a go next week. Join us next time on Fabulous Finds.”

Crowley shook his head, snickered to himself, and downed the rest of the drink. “Well, that’s it, then. Your new career. No more playing angel. Hollywood, here you come.”

“Oh, please.”

“The camera does wonderful things to you, darling.” 

“Stop.” Was he blushing? “You’re being silly.”

“No, really, that’s a lovely piece. I’m glad you like it. Going there, I mean. I never did like facial hair myself.”

“You should come with me sometime. Saul is very good. He has very steady hands.”

Crowley narrowed his eyes. He’d heard enough of Saul and his hands. Watching the human take a straight razor to the delicate skin of Aziraphale’s throat had been somehow disconcerting. “Nah. I just miracle it away every morning. Don’t like all that unnecessary touching.”

Aziraphale peeled himself from his chair to turn off the television. It didn’t have a remote, after all. “Why not?” he asked.

Crowley shrugged. 

“But we touch all the time,” Aziraphale pressed, wondering if perhaps he’d read the entire last century incorrectly and that he may want to abolish his romantic thoughts and reconsider how many times he already did touch Crowley. They’d been shaking hands, bumping into one another, knocking knees under tables, and slapping each other jovially on the backs while drunk for centuries now. The first time had been entirely impulsive on Aziraphale’s part; it was he who reached out first, to offer comfort after the whole Ark business, had placed his hand on the demon’s shoulder and surprised them both when nothing out of the ordinary happened. No sparks, nothing. Since then they didn’t think twice. They certainly weren’t what people would call touchy-feely, but they did stroll around arm-in-arm as was the custom for the better part of a century. Aziraphale has missed this more than he’d care to admit.

“I just don’t like humans touching the corporation, is all. It’s different. You and me.”

Aziraphale sent up a silent prayer of thanks. God Herself, long-tired of these two dancing around each other, heard, and raised the ambient temperature another degree. Aziraphale didn’t notice. 

“How is it different?” he asked.

Crowley made a face. Then, with the insight of the drunk and slightly dehydrated, he sighed and said, “I think sometimes they can tell. That I’m… that I’m not like them. If they touch me.”

Aziraphale tutted. “I’m sure they can’t.”

“Ask any cat.”

“Your barber is not a cat. Or at least I wouldn’t think so. Who _is_ your barber? One of those posh places in Mayfair, I suppose?”

“Different one each time, if I use one at all. I can just...” Here he wiggled his fingers toward his head.

“What about your masseur?”

“My what? I don’t have a masseur.” A beat. “You have a masseur?”

“Oh yes.”

Looking vaguely uncomfortable, Crowley frowned. That thought conjured up more images, those of his plump naked angel lying on a massage table with a towel over his arse and someone touching his shoulders, his back, the place where his wings would manifest… it was off-putting. _Well, at least I’m feeling jealous,_ he thought to himself. Jealousy was an admirable demonic trait. He’d been worried of late that perhaps he was less of a demon than before. 

“...And of course there’s my manicurist. You must have a manicurist. I’ve seen your nails all… lacquered purple or whatever.”

“Black, angel, and I paint them myself.”

“You do not.”

“Do.”

“Oh.” 

There was a silence, not necessarily uncomfortable. They often sat in contemplative silence, although it rarely happened while drunk. At least drunk on wine. Or spirits. Was it the Pimm’s? Aziraphale blamed it on the heat. Then, as an invitation back into conversation: “Will you do mine sometime?”

Crowley smiled and plucked at the sides of his unbuttoned shirt, fanning himself. “If you’d like. But it’s not in fashion right now.” He turned then, on the settee, toward Aziraphale. “It wouldn’t match your...ensemble.” 

“You might enjoy a massage,” Azraphale suggested. “We’ve had a stressful year, after all. When was the last time you really loosened up?”

“Took a nap as a snake three days ago.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Pretty loose right now.” He thought some more. “You know, maybe it’s different. After all of that. I haven’t even got one Miracle Use Report since the bit with the bath.”

“Not a one! Lucky you.” Aziraphale received his per normal procedure, although for the first time ever, the count hadn’t been totalled, itemized, red-inked, deemed excessive, or criticized otherwise. It was just a list, no signature required or anything. The angel took it as a win. “I was afraid they were going to put me on one of those miracle plans where they only allow so much use of holy power per month.”

“You have those?” Crowley seemed genuinely taken aback. “Harsh!”

“My dear, my lot came up with data packages for your mobile telephones. We’ve been rationing miracles for years.”

“Is that why you’re always having me do them for you?”

“Well now. It does do to be prudent. Save them for when they’re really necessary.” 

“Like now? We’re out of alcohol, ice, and I’m afraid I may have eaten the last of the cucumber.”

“You actually ate it?” 

“It was more booze than cucumber at that point.”

It was at that moment that the tiny droplets of perspiration that had been gathering on the nape of Crowley’s neck finally coalesced into a bead of sweat that traveled slowly down his collarbone, down his sternum, wound its way through the hair on his chest and disappeared into his vest. And that was it: the straw that broke the camel’s back was a droplet of water and salt. Aziraphale reached out and touched--the tips of his fingers touching Crowley’s skin, just there, right under the hollow of his throat. He could feel the heat under his fingers, and the damp, and coarseness of the hairs there. 

“This heat is unbearable,” he whispered, and what he meant was that he was so bursting with love that he was about to combust and that the only way to assuage the burning in his soul was to touch, to strip Crowley bare and run his fingers over all the places he hadn’t touched yet, to kiss him, to feel the taut skin over his wicked hips, to stroke his wings, to follow that trail of hair down where it disappeared into those jeans that were completely inappropriate attire in this type of heat. 

Crowley’s eyes grew as big as the cucumbers which had graced them earlier. He was very adept at reading his angel, after all. 

He swallowed. He’d tried this nearly fifty times now. It wouldn’t hurt to try once more. “What do you say,” he said slowly, with meaning, “that we get out of here and go back to mine. I have central air.” 

God cranked up the heat inside the bookshop yet again, just in case Aziraphale suffered a moment of insecurity. 

“I’ll even paint your nails.”

Nearly six thousand years of refusing Crowley’s invitations died on Aziraphale’s lips. You know, that sounds lovely,” he said, standing and pulling his wet shirt away from his back. “Let’s. Maybe I could give you a massage. If you’d like, that is.” He met Crowley’s eyes with a naughty twinkle in his own. 

“Yes? Well, yeah, I… Really?”

“No temptation required.” He held out his hand. Crowley took it and stood. They stared at each other for a long moment, smiling stupidly at each other. 

“Angel,” said Crowley, lifting his hand to run his fingers over Aziraphale’s brow, to push back the damp curls. “You’re positively glowing.” 

Aziraphale blushed, turning his cheek into the caress. “I might be. It’s about time we...move forward,” he said primly. “Don’t you agree?”

“More than,” said Crowley. “I’ve been wanting to get your kit off for ages.” 

“Ssh, now,” demurred Aziraphale. He really was glowing; candle-soft light surrounded his head. 

Crowley smoothed his thumb over Aziraphale’s chin, tipping it up slightly until their eyes met. “Smooth as a bottom,” he quipped, smiling.

“Well,” said Aziraphale, blushing harder. “That’s yet to be determined. I honestly think I may prefer…”

“Shut up, angel,” said Crowley. “I want to kiss you, and if I do that here we might burn the shop down a second time.”

“Oh. I’d rather that not happen,” replied Aziraphale.

“Well. Then. Shall we?” Crowley sobered himself up, donned his sunglasses, and willed his effort to calm the fuck down. He figured if he could survive this long without Aziraphale’s mouth on his, his heavy body atop his, pushing him down, taking him apart… he could survive the drive to his flat. But only just barely.

Several hours later, great stacks of cumulonimbus clouds gathered over Wales and blew into London with a ferocity that the city rarely sees. Meteorologists were absolutely giddy. The power grid fluctuated and caused the lights to dim momentarily. And in a high-rise in Mayfair, two supernatural beings were still slick and sweaty, even though the thermostat read a comfortable twenty-one degrees.


End file.
